Home » Business News » Western companies looking to leave Russia after sanctions

Western companies looking to leave Russia after sanctions

By Hugh Fort in Business News, posted March 2, 2022

Shell, BP, and HSBC are among the giants looking to leave Russia as western countries turn the screw on Moscow and Vladimir Putin.

Reuters reports the energy giants, the bank and the world's biggest aircraft leasing firm AerCap have all joined the companies looking to get out of Russia after it invaded its neighbor in the Ukraine.

The west's sanctions on Russia include closing airspace to Russian aircraft, removing banks from the SWIFT global financial network, and restricting the use of $630 billion's worth of foreign reserves.

Shell says it will exit all its Russian operations, including the flagship Sakhalin 2 LNG plant in which it holds a 27.5 percent stake and which is 50 percent owned and operated by Russian gas group Gazprom.

Chief Executive Ben van Beurden called the invasion a "senseless act of military aggression."

He said: "We cannot – and we will not – stand by."

BP is Russia's biggest foreign investor has confirmed it will abandon its own 20 per cent stake in state-controlled Rosneft, at a cost of up to $25 billion.

This will cut the firm's oil and gas reserves in half.

Equinor, another oil firm which is owned by the Norwegian state, also confirmed it will start retreating from its joint interests in Russia.

British bank HSBC said it was starting to wind down relations with a host of Russian banks including the second-largest, VTB, one of those targeted by sanctions, a memo seen by Reuters showed.

Follow WhatNews on YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook